South schools rule WASA’s Spoken Word Competition

She was one of the top three students who hailed from schools from the southland.

Second and third place winners were Kevian Nelson of San Fernando East Secondary School and Leeum Quan Kep San Fernando Central Secondary School, respectively.

Fifteen students made it to the finals and they gave impressive performances as they relayed the important message about preserving and conserving waste water.

It was an learning experience for many present, including Public Utilities Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, who said the exercise was a learning experience for him because as minister, he was not even aware of some of the issues the students raised.

Deeply intellectual, well researched and sometimes humourous, the students got their point across as they urged the nation to preserve their water supply as it was vital for their survival.

Charles said she never expected to win the competition because her contemporaries all performed so well. She admitted that she started preparing late for the competition.

“They came to our school in February and I was actually delayed because I’m in Form 6 and I have exams to prepare for, so I prepared at the very last minute.

When I found out I got through I dedicated my time to studying the piece and with the help of my teacher Dwayne Ali and other students, they helped me with the words and emotions for it to sound the way it did,” an elated Charles said.

And while this was her first competition, Charles said it was something that she would be doing more.

The teenager said it was while doing her research on the subject that she became aware that waste water was something that can be reused .

“It impacts on the environment in a very bad way and we need the environment to sustain our lives, and that is where I really got the passion and drive to do this competition,” said Charles, who intends to pursue either International Relations or French.

Third place winner Quan Kep, self proclaimed “Wettest WASA Man”, kept the audience in stitches as he described how much he loved his girl, “Faucet Claire.” He definitely earned his kudos.

And although she did not make it to the top five, Abigail Charles of Bishops Anstey and Trinity College East, delivered a mind provoking piece with her “Pure Water of Our Land.” She linked her piece of waste water with what was taking place with our youth of the nation today.

“As soon as they said waste management and my environment, my mind just automatically went to our society because currently how things are going in my country and my environment right now, that is affecting me right now.

“We have programmes, but how effective are they really? And it was the perfect thing to link the crime and the youth, and how they get like the waste waters of our society,” Abigail said.

“Our pledge says ‘to the service of my God and my country’, so it is my pledge to keep our waters clean and make sure that our society is clean. When Dr Eric Williams became the prime minister I am pretty sure the vision was not the one we have in our country right now,” she added.

Abigail said as a society, we could not just sit back and just look on as our youth continued to falter.

“We can’t keep going on and saying ‘Oh God, that bad and I don’t want to hear that’. But what are we doing about it? We are just swimming in the water.If we choose to actually take the time, if you see a youth being disrespectful to somebody tell them something, don’t just sit down there and be like that is not my business.

We have to be an active part in the state of our society,” Abigail said.